‘I saw my husband being shot’

Shalini Sharma, wife of the top executive who was gunned down on Friday in Indirapuram, is distraught. She is especially angry with the onlookers, who she said did nothing while the assailants incessantly fired shots at her husband.

Ghaziabad: Shalini Sharma, wife of the top executive who was gunned down on Friday in Indirapuram, is distraught. She is especially angry with the onlookers, who she said did nothing while the assailants incessantly fired shots at her husband.

“When I heard the first shots, I peeped down from my balcony and heard my husband say to the gunmen: What have I done? Why are you hitting me,” a grieving Shalini said.

Nitin Sharma, 35, deputy general manager with Aero Group of Companies, was shot dead in broad daylight outside his house in Shakti-Khand IV, Indirapuram.

The two assailants, stated to be between 21 and 25 years, were afoot and armed with .30 caliber pistols.

By the time Shalini came downstairs, she found her husband lying in a pool of blood and the two assailants running away.

Police officials said that more than six rounds of fire were shot by the two culprits, who seemed to be professional killers. They, however, remained clueless about the motive behind the brutal murder.

SS Yadav, superintendent of police, said they were probing previously sacked employees and also investigating whether Sharma had any altercation with some unknown persons on Friday morning.

“We have found two instances when Sharma sacked some employees at a Ghaziabad mall and also at Pitampura. We are also questioning his colleagues,” Yadav added.

Sharma was handling around 200 of the company’s retail and franchisee outlets in the regions of Delhi-NCR, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and the north-eastern states.

Although his wife said that her husband did not have any enemies, she talked about an incident that had taken place around two months back in Delhi. “He had hit an employee after a theft was reported at a showroom in Pitampura. This employee was later sacked,” Shalini said, adding, “It is now the police’s job to find the killers.”

Close friends of the victim’s family said that Sharma had shifted to Indirapuram around seven to eight years back and was also due for promotion in the coming time.

“He had also planned to relocate to some other residence due to rising crime in this area. He mostly remained on tours but had been attending office in Delhi regularly for the past three days,” said Shiv Kumar, Sharma’s friend.